Kenley Jansen is completely unfair

Kenley Jansen is completely unfair

CHICAGO — Imagine, for a moment, what it must be like to face Kenley Jansen.

Jansen throws mid-90s heat, so for you and me, none of the other stuff would really matter. Regular human beings who aren’t pro baseball players (or high-level college ones) have practically no chance whatsoever of making solid contact off a 95-mph fastballs. But in this hypothetical scenario, you’re a Major Leaguer, and you wouldn’t be in the Majors if you couldn’t hit 95. Not in 2017. Too many guys throw that hard.

So the velocity, while incredible by normal human standards, is not what makes Jansen so unhittable — the dude who has struck out an astonishing 121 batters in 75 1/3 regular season and postseason innings to date in 2017. There’s a catch to it: Jansen’s 95-mph pitches are cutters, biting impossibly hard and impossibly late toward his glove side.

Just look at it go. And consider, too, that the guy taking a horrible swing against Jansen to end the NLDS here Paul Goldschmidt, one of the very best hitters on the planet. Goldschmidt had no chance:

But there’s so much more! Jansen doesn’t merely claim devastating movement and life on the pitch he throws some 90% of the time; he can also put it wherever he wants.

A converted minor-league catcher, Jansen didn’t even become a full-time pitcher until 2010. Over the course of his career on the mound, he has developed impeccable control and command: He walked 13.8% of the batters he faced during his first big-league stint in 2010, an unspectacular rate, but has steadily cut out the free passes over the course of his tenure and walked only 2.7% of opposing hitters this season — third best among all MLB pitchers with at least 50 innings pitched. As Travis Sawchik at Fangraphs pointed out in August, the improved control and Jansen’s increased confidence in his strike-throwing ability combine to mean he can spot his cutter pretty much wherever he wants now. Jansen’s not throwing more pitches inside the strike zone than he did earlier in his career, but he’s throwing more first-pitch strikes and more pitches on the corners.

Oh, also: Though the late cutting action makes Jansen’s signature pitch difficult to hit solidly even when opposing hitters know it’s coming, the fact they know it’s coming should mean they can at least time it up. Only Jansen works in a Clayton Kershaw-style hesitation in his delivery sometimes, and quick-pitches at other times. He wasn’t satisfied simply throwing a pitch no one can hit. He had to start messing with people in the process. Here’s a Kershaw-like mid-delivery pause on a pitch that struck out Ian Happ to end Game 3 of the NLCS:

And that’s not all! Jansen, as Mike Petriello of MLB.com pointed out earlier in October, also features a breaking ball sometimes. He didn’t throw it very often in the regular season, but its usage has ticked up in the playoffs. A slider, it moves a bit like his cutter but comes in about 10 mph slower and dives downward when it gets to the strike zone.

You, our hypothetical Major League hitter in this situation, feel pretty confident that Jansen’s going to throw his cutter. And while maybe you recognize you have no chance to hit it if he puts it on the outside corner, you think, “OK, I’ve seen it before, I know how it moves, I’m going to focus on looking for something in the lower part of the strike zone and putting a good swing on it.” But then, no, sorry, you’re doomed: Jansen busted out the slider.

Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo, you probably know, are also two of the best hitters in the world — even if they haven’t looked that way this postseason. Look how unspeakably bad Jansen made them look in his four-out save in Game 1 of the NLCS. Both Cubs sluggers chased sliders that bounced before they reached the catcher.

So far this postseason, Jansen has thrown seven innings and allowed only two hits, one walk and no runs while striking out 12 batters. The Dodgers’ bullpen has combined for a 1.21 ERA with 23 strikeouts and two walks in 22 1/3 postseason innings. Dave Roberts is as good a tactical manager as exists in the Majors and deserves some credit for pushing the right buttons at the right time, but it definitely helps — a lot — when one of those buttons is Kenley Freaking Jansen.

After posting a 1.32 ERA in the regular season, Jansen has yet to allow a run this postseason.

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